John Moses Browning (1855 - 1926) was a true genius of
mechanical design. The son of a Mormon gunsmith, he began working
full-time in that profession at age 15. His 1878 design for a
single-shot metallic cartridge rifle resulted in the first of many
patents that he would receive during his lifetime. In partnership
with five of his brothers, Browning later opened a machine shop in
Ogden, Utah, but the firm's output of three guns per day could not
keep up with demand for his products. One of his rifles was
purchased by a representative of Winchester Repeating Arms Company
and shipped to Thomas G. Bennett, the firm's General Manager, who
purchased the patent rights for $8,000 and hired the Browning
brothers as Winchester "jobbers".

At this time, Winchester's popular Model 1873 lever-action rifle
could not handle large-caliber ammunition such as the .45-70
cartridge. Browning set himself to this task, and he designed and
patented a simple but strong lever-action rifle with a smooth
action. This rifle, which would become the Winchester Model 1886,
could handle cartridges as large as the .50-110 Express, and is
considered by some to be the finest lever-action rifle
ever.

Browning's association with Winchester continued until 1902 and
resulted in the Model 1885 Single Shot Rifle, the Model 1887
lever-action shotgun, the Model 1893 and Model 1897 pump-action
shotguns, and the Model 1892, Model 1894, and Model 1895
lever-action rifles. The Model 1894 alone resulted in over five
million sales for the company and is still in production.
Additional Browning patents were purchased by Winchester but never
produced to prevent competing firms from bringing them to
market.

In the summer of 1896, Browning traveled to Colt's Manufacturing
Company in Hartford, Connecticut with four patented semi-automatic
pistols of his design. Two of these guns were forerunners of such
famous arms as the Fabrique Nationale Model 1900 and the Colt Model
1911. All possessed features that are still commonly used on
semi-auto pistols such as slides, slide springs located over,
under, or around the barrel, grip safeties, and detachable
magazines located inside the butt. As a result of this visit,
Browning signed an agreement that licensed Colt to produce his
pistols and promised additional licenses for improvements in these
designs. In return, Colt agreed to provide royalties, something
that was foreign to Winchester at that time, as the firm bought
patents outright from their designers.

A year later, while visiting the Colt offices, Browning met Hart
O. Berg of Fabrique Nationale of Belgium. Browning, Colt, and FN
entered into a licensing agreement that gave the North American
market to Colt, the European continent to FN, and a shared market
in Great Britain. In addition, the two firms agreed to pay cross
royalties for territorial "infringement."

Browning was no stranger to Colt. In 1888, he came up with the
idea of harnessing propellant gas from the muzzle of a rifle to
cycle the gun's action. Three years later, he took his patented
design for the world's first gas-operated fully-automatic "machine
gun" to Hartford. Under Colt auspices, he demonstrated this gun for
the U.S. Navy, which was interested in obtaining machine guns that
were capable of firing continuously for three minutes. Browning
doubted the ability of his prototype, with its 600
rounds-per-minute rate of fire, to stand up to this punishing test.
Although the barrel turned red-hot, the gun successfully completed
the trial, and Browning signed a licensing agreement with
Colt.

These machine guns later saw action in both the Spanish-American
War and the Boxer Rebellion. In 1915, Browning anticipated U.S.
entry into the war that was then raging in Europe, and designed two
machine guns that would see wide service over the next several
decades. The first was a water-cooled machine gun, chambered for
the .30-06 cartridge, that successfully fired 20,000 rounds during
two different trials without a malfunction. This gun also fired a
continuous burst for over 48 minutes, ending only when the
ammunition belt was completely expended.

The second of these designs was for the B.A.R., or Browning
Automatic Rifle, a 15-pound light machine gun that also chambered
the .30-06 cartridge. When the United States went to war in 1917,
the government bought production rights for these two guns, as well
as the Colt Model 1911 pistol, for $750,000. Browning moved to
Hartford to supervise the manufacture of these guns by Colt and
other contractors, but by the time production reached its peak, the
war had ended. However, these guns played an important role during
the Second World War and other conflicts.

Browning's post-First World War military designs included both
water- and air-cooled .50 caliber machine guns, and a 37 millimeter
automatic cannon for use in aircraft. For the civilian market, he
was responsible for the Auto-5 semi-automatic shotgun, the
Superposed double shotgun, the Hi-Power semi-automatic pistol, and
several other designs, including a .22 caliber rifle with one
spring and a single moving part.

All told, John Browning received over 120 U.S. and foreign patents
for over 80 different firearms, and his designs were produced by a
variety of manufacturers. He died of heart failure in 1926 at age
71 in the Fabrique National office of his son, Val.